In Luxor Egypt is taught without dust and plastic. As taken from one of the numerous documentaries that we have all seen of the first great civilization of history, Their tombs enter the stomach of the earth and its temples grow with columns so high that they do not let the sky breathe. Karnak's temple is so majestic that you look at him with fear. We, Faced with so much insecurity that reigns in the country that makes it tourists, We were lucky to contemplate it almost privately and then their stones speak to you sadly about those other times where there was nothing that was not a shadow on its ground.
Then, That afternoon we go out with a fallac to navigate the Nile. In that boat from which we saw the day out, he told us to slide that now there is no food at his table. "There are no tourists, No one is coming. There are months in which I have not made an exit when I used to do eleven in one day. But Allah is big and I hope that changes. If there is bread like bread and if there is nothing like nothing ”. And while the good man spoke we contemplated the infinite cemetery of cruises in which that place has become: stops, unusable, in row, With no one to take.
With Mubarak they taught us not to take care of the Nile, At school they forgot about the river
Then, That night, In the Hotel Sheraton jetty, whose double room cost 30 EUR, I found Kamil while taking some photos in the other shore Valle de los Reyes. And with Kamil I began to speak calmly while he cleaned his unusable ship and when I told him that his river does not deserve the treatment they give him explained that “with Mubarak they taught us not to take care of the Nile, At school they forgot about the river. Everything gave the same. Years ago I denounced one of those great cruises that was changing the oil in the waters. I had some photos that took some Norwegian tourists. The police chief went to the ship, They invited him to dinner and the next day I was at the police station, where I spent a night, And I had to remove the complaint so as not to go into prison. But it, You are right, It is a shame how we take care of the Nile ". Then Kamil explained to me that there have been months in which a tourist has not passed through this immense hotel and told me that the fault was "of the media and the Internet that only bad things tell".
We left luxor and we went on a road that cut the desert to Asuán. There we stay at the Philea Hotel, small and simple, where they attended us with some affection (something unusual and we have not received on this land, where we have generally found little not interested and much voracity. We had no luck in three weeks). In Asuán we spent four days preparing the papers to take the ferry to Sudan.
In Saudi Arabia Hitler and the Germans are the maximum
There we meet Edward, A Canadian who worked as a professor in Saudi Arabia and who detailed a delirious story of how he left his Saudi fiancee, schoolmate, After discovering that “he was a fan of Hitler. At first I thought it was a joke, But then I saw that at home he had a shelf full of his books. In Saudi Arabia Hitler and the Germans are the maximum ”. Then, Looking out the window I saw a woman pass with the veil covering all her face and told us "they all go in the country in which I live", and expressed it with the same sadness with which we contemplated it. In each body covered by each woman we could not avoid a look of our anguish, of contempt before such arbitrary norm.
But Egypt is a place where freedom is forbidden. That's why we couldn't go with our car to Abu Simbel. There we were at eleven in the morning as they had told us willing to go with the military escort. But, Always a but, It turns out that we had not filled I do not know what sheet and in this place there is no place to understand the regrets of some foreigners. And then Jasmine, A lovely young woman we met, He told us to see the trucks full of military who “those men create many tears. Now they go to rural areas and kill people and take many prisoners ”. In Asú are in the only place where we listen to several people to defend the work of the now prohibited Muslim brothers.
Now they go to rural areas and kill people and take many prisoners
And we had time, a long time, To contemplate the tombs of the nobles, To get lost every night in his bazaar where the city was turned on, that life begins in the desert when the sun falls, and, especially, To see the Temple of Philea. We saw it in deep darkness, We were nine people, And his light and sound show excited us. The main bears shone clear over our heads and we listened to the history of a country and some stones that had to be rescued from the background of the waters when the great dam was.
It was almost a perfect metaphor of this place, The country more complicated than we have ever traveled. For the three Egypt it has been a disappointment. A difficult place, where we did not find almost anyone who will help us without money in between, Without an interest. We went with the feeling of seeing a beautiful earth to be pieces that deserves a fresh start, today he does not deserve his inheritance. I can't say that we have not been happy here, Because we have spent great moments despite so much misery and miserable in our environment. That morning on the pier of the boat that would take us to Sudan were thinking about all this while watching fights and beats by carts loaded, to earn money, more life to lose.
